David Frum, a former speechwriter for GW Bush, and a noted neo-conservative has now called for a halt to any further funding of the disastrous campaign of John McCain. He wants all Republicans to stop pretending that McCain has a chance and to change the dynamic of the race. He wants McCain and all Republicans to say that we are most certainly going to have a Democrat in the White House and to keep the Democrats from having total control, you have to vote for ME, the down ticket Republican. In an editorial in the Washington Post, Frum says:
There are many ways to lose a presidential election. John McCain is losing in a way that threatens to take the entire Republican Party down with him.
His background on the McCain election strategy is interesting, and quite obviously, it failed in more ways than they could ever believe.
A year ago, the Arizona senator's team made a crucial strategic decision. McCain would run on his (impressive) personal biography. On policy, he'd hew mostly to conservative orthodoxy...But this strategy wasn't yielding results in the general election. So in August, McCain tried a bold new gambit: He would reach out to independents and women with an exciting and unexpected vice presidential choice.
That didn't work out so well either. Gov. Sarah Palin connected with neither independents nor women. She did, however, ignite the Republican base, which has come to support her passionately. And so, in this last month, the McCain campaign has Palinized itself to make the most of its last asset. To fire up the Republican base, the McCain team has hit at Barack Obama as an alien, a radical and a socialist.
Oh boy, does he go on. This part is so true it's scary. Does he know he was writing for a newspaper?
Sure enough, the base has responded. After months and months of wan enthusiasm among Republicans, these last weeks have at last energized the core of the party. But there's a downside: The very same campaign strategy that has belatedly mobilized the Republican core has alienated and offended the great national middle, which was the only place where the 2008 election could have been won.
I could pile up the poll numbers here, but frankly . . . it's too depressing. You have to go back to the Watergate era to see numbers quite so horrible for the GOP.
OH NO, now we're starting to talk about reality in the House and Senate. Remember, this is a very key member of Bush's Washington elite....
McCain's awful campaign is having awful consequences down the ballot. I spoke a little while ago to a senior Republican House member. "There is not a safe Republican seat in the country," he warned. "I don't mean that we're going to lose all of them. But we could lose any of them."
In the Senate, things look, if possible, even worse.
He goes on and you can read it all here:David Frum...DUMP McCAIN
The points of what he wants the Republicans to do TODAY:
- Every available dollar that can be shifted to a senatorial campaign must be shifted to a senatorial campaign.
- We need a message change that frankly acknowledges that the Democrats are probably going to win the White House -- and that warns of the dangers of one-party, left-wing government. I'm not suggesting that the RNC throw up its hands. But down-ballot Republicans need to give up on the happy talk about how McCain has Obama just where he wants him, take off their game faces and say something like this:
"We're almost certainly looking at a Democratic White House. I can work with a Democratic president to help this state. But we need balance in Washington.
The good news for the Obama side is that there is NO WAY that McCain and his huge ego would ever do anything like this. The fact that he even says "I have Obama right where I want him" is so damn dumb, because those are the words that will be played back for years to come. Doesn't he even GET You Tube?
The fact that Frum let this all out in the Washington Post, means only one thing. The Republicans are terrified, and they know that McCain will never listen. Rogue jackass Sarah Palin would go nuts if McCain conceded this. She thinks she is still going to be Vice President.
This is great news for the Democrats. When they fear EVERY SINGLE RACE, it means that their internal polling is showing a bloodbath, but somehow McCain and Palin are missing it all. The first thing that should go are the ineffective and offensive robo-calls, and then the mail pieces calling Obama a terrorist. How much money was wasted on that effort will never be truly known, but it was a debacle from start to finish. All it did was portray the Republicans as the mean pit bulls and nobody but the people already voting for them fell for any of it.
An addendum: Thanks for the comments and the rec. I never thought it would be a big deal, to see your article on the rec list, but it is. It is not as perfect as being a Mom, but close in excitement to the impending Obama victory. I am glad that this piece of information about the wrecklessness of the McCain campaign is getting a wide viewing. So thanks. Sorry if some of you think I took too much of the article. There was SO MUCH MORE that I had to pick and choose and thought these bits were important.
Also, this is the same guy that Rachael Maddow took apart on her show. Transcript here:Rachael Maddow show with Frum
Plus a link to tall the comments to Frum at the WaPo Comments to Frum from WaPo Readers Obviously, not as coherent and awsome as KOS comments, but interesting nonetheless.